Standing rock north dakota

Years after first oil pipeline protests broke out, North Dakota lawmakers are set to vote on a bill that would permanently seal public records involving the police response. The records are critical to ongoing lawsuits. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) was met with resistance from the moment it was announced in 2014. Transporting shale oil through four states, the $3.78 billion project drew the fury of environmental activists and Native Americans, whose reservation it ran through. Nearly 800 protesters were arrested and 300 injured between April 2016 and the project’s completion a year later. Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, as well as several leaks, aided in the legal defense of protesters and in class-action lawsuits against North Dakota police and TigerSwan, a private security company brought in to crack down on the protests. All in all, more than 800 criminal cases have resulted from the demonstrations. Those publicly available … [Read more...] about North Dakota bill could permanently seal police, government records on pipeline protests

Gary Garth Special to USA TODAY Published 8:00 AM EST Nov 10, 2018 THEODORE ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK, N.D. – An hour or so before sunset the landscape reflects a refracted prism hue. The colors are a pale rainbow in scattershot, with pinks, blues, reds, purples, yellows and endless variations reflecting from the rocks, which are something of a time capsule in vertical. The Badlands sweep across the horizon in a freeze frame, the result of an eon of erosion. They are dazzling anytime, but shimmer when the sun touches the horizon. It’s prettier than I’m describing. If you don’t count the wind, all is silence, reflective and lonesome but without a trace of loneliness. That’s not why Theodore Roosevelt came in September 1883, a 24-year-old New Yorker brimming with confidence. He came to hunt buffalo, which he did with success. He also bought a ranch and decided to become a cattleman and a cowboy. The newly installed Western businessman then returned to … [Read more...] about Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota’s hidden gem

Rose Cordier had been watching the lights go off on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota for decades, and the darkness cause chaos around her, before she decided something had to be done. The Cherry-Todd Electric Cooperative services most residents of the reservation, and Cordier’s neighbours’ power got cut whenever they were a few days late paying the bill. As soon as that happened, they would run extension lines from other neighbours, among them Cordier. If, instead, they moved in with friends or family until their next pay cheque arrived and they could pay the bill, the tribal housing authority might board up their homes. The authority receives funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and federal regulations consider a home abandoned if left uninhabited and without power for 30 days. Sometimes the extensions gave enough time for families to get together funds to pay the bill as well as the hefty late fees, disconnection fees and … [Read more...] about Darkness in South Dakota

Mention Canada and most people immediately think of a trip through the Rockies from Calgary to Vancouver – but In the first of two features about one of the Commonwealth country's lesser known provinces, travel writer Alan Wooding enjoys all that the prairie state of Saskatchewan has to offer. "It's been a joke for years that if your dog runs away in Saskatchewan, you can still see him three day later," said Shane Owen, one of our two Canadian hosts for the trip.But we were soon about to learn that this vast province known as Canada's 'bread basket' is far from being flat or indeed entirely covered in flowing wheat and barley fields.As guest of Tourism Saskatchewan on what was deemed a 'Man Up' trip, I made the seven-and-a-half hour flight from London's Heathrow Airport to Toronto's Lester B Pearson International aboard an Air Canada Boeing 777, the time difference being five hours. However I had to wait another four hours until an Air Canada Embraer 190 made the onward … [Read more...] about Travel: Living out a Wild West dream